You might well have drifted away from the game since then, but you know what? Your younger self was on to something. Ping pong is an powerful -- and fun -- way to work up a sweat. Your elderly self may want to test it in case you're searching for a vigorous exercise with hardly any risk of harm. And you may even gain from the favorable effects the game is widely credited with having to mind functions.

Then there is Navin Kumar, a 40-year-old government employee who explained, "I am playing ping pongreally for my success."

Kumar has gotten back in the game in a big way lately, despite some fairly significant health issues. The Gaithersburg resident has been born with a congenital heart disease and he's experienced five open-heart operations, two of these when he was only 3 years old. His heart is partly mechanical, with valves made out of carbon fiber, and he uses a pacemaker.On a Caribbean cruise a couple of years before, Kumar won a ping-pong tournament (many aficionados refer to it as ping pong, however the casual term remains okay), and he had been reminded of just how much he'd enjoyed the game as a child, even competing in an officially sanctioned event in 1986. He began visiting the Maryland Ping pong Center at Gaithersburg but needed to take off some time due to a few more heart-related problems, in addition to the arrival of a child.

Since July, Kumar continues to be back at MDTTC using a vengeance, stating that, "in reality, today I am playing since, by a heart perspective, I have had all of the open-heart surgeries I desire -- knock on wood"

When he got into ping pong, Kumar was searching for a lively but non-contact action, due to "the mechanical stuff within" and the fact he takes anticoagulant medication. He's gotten his cardiovascular level way up, all right, and some side effects which are proving very beneficial in combating a much more pressing medical problem.

About a year and a half past, Kumar was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He may have gotten that identification earlier, but the start of symptoms was initally difficult to differentiate from the essential tremor (ET) disease he had long had.

ET impacts the left side of Kumar's own body, while Parkinson's manifests itself onto his own right, the side he also uses to maintain his paddle. During a practice session, I watched Kumar request his coach if he can change to a exercises on the backhand side, since hitting forehands had become temporarily hard.

However, his ability to perform fluidly "was substantially worse three months past," Kumar explained me."Together with the Parkinson's, I am getting the extra advantage of muscle stiffness, some advancement from the tremors, also," Kumar added. "I am going to get the tremors, but this helps to keep my hands relaxed."

Not just that, but at the latest trip for his neurologist, Kumar showed tremendous improvement on evaluations of his motor skills, reflexes and memory.

Ping pong was linked to enhanced cognitive functioning at least as far back as 1992, when Japanese researchers conducted tests on regular players. Their decision: "It's evident from this research that ping pong players maintain better emotional ability in the old age in comparison to best ping pong table."

Given a little ball travel short distances at high rate, players should not just monitor its moves carefully with their own eyes but immediately make tactical decisions and respond quickly with their own bodies.

"Study after study demonstrates how it assists the brain, it delays the onset of Alzheimer's disease," states Larry Hodges, Kumar's mentor and also a co-founder of MDTTC. In terms of the remainder of the human body, "you've got to move quickly. At a quick rally, then you do unbelievable training. Your legs need to be in fantastic shape, and in case you've got extra fat, you can not proceed"

Over at Northern Virginia Ping pong Center at Chantilly, head trainer Zhongxing Lu pointed out (by his daughter, who interpreted his Chinese) more selling things, such as ping pong's capability to boost eyesight and reflexes, the unlikelihood of severe harm and the nearly unlimited age variety. His youngest member is 6; his earliest is 82.

Ping pong is surely a game one could play nicely into the senior years, even if my trip to the Northern Virginia Ping pong Club at Arlington was any sign. There, I talked to three members of this club executive board, two of whom have been a spry 71, together with all the next checking in at sprier (one supposes) 70.

"Apart from the bodily motion, the hand-eye coordination which you develop this is fantastic," Fred Siskind of McLean (the 70-year-old) explained me. "I believed I'd have dropped the hand-eye quickness [following several years not enjoying the game], and I am positive I am not how I had been in my 20s, but I have been amazed. ... The quickness remains there."Tom Norwood, additionally from McLean, added, "This really is the way I fight my diabetes. It is very good practice. ... If it were not for this, I would be running on a treadmill someplace."The Arlington club is based out of Madison Community Center, and it has been in existence since the early 1990s. MDTTC, in which Kumar plays, goes back that way, but the similarities immediately start to drop off.

Where the Arlington club includes a casual setting, together with four tables in individual rooms (which was classrooms, complete with blackboards, throughout the building's past life as a college), the Maryland centre is a complex operation, the biggest of its type in the region and, according to Hodges, the earliest in the nation.

"As of 2007, there were just eight fulltime training centres in the USA," Hodges said. "When we started in 1992, we were the very first. ... Now there are 76 -- we have been keeping track."

At least five fulltime facilities have arisen from the Washington region in the last couple of decades, a very clear sign that ping pong is about the growth in these parts. Hodges explained Maryland as "one of the hotbeds for ping pong," and MDTTC has been home to some of the best ping pong players at the USA, including many federal group members. Kumar is great at ping pong, but he knows he could grow to be far better, and he's enthusiastic about his chances of getting there best ping pong paddles. In the brief term, he's very enthusiastic about competing in the national championships in Las Vegas this season. Obviously, Kumar also has some other significant aims in mind.

"I look at my 2 women, and I need to be about them forever. I really don't need this Parkinson's to have its way with me, or my heart. I perform for my success." Where to play: Most county recreation centers have tables available, a few for a small charge. From the District, Comet Ping Ping also includes a couple tables in the rear of a pizza shop.